drinking – SIMCHA FISHER

What’s for supper? Vol. 111: We can be gyros, just for one day

Not gonna lie, we ate like kings this week, and I was happy with my food photos, too. Not gonna lie!

SATURDAY
Burgers and chips, broccoli and dip

I think Damien made this. You’ll notice, that was kind of a theme this week.

SUNDAY
Pizza

Damien made the pizza while I was gardening or something. I recall coming in all huffing and puffing and covered with dirt, and there was this wonderful pizza coming out of the oven just melting with onions, sliced garlic, and feta. Here is an unfiltered photo of this psychedelic pizza, transmitted, as the name implies, directly from my psyche:

Far out, man.

MONDAY
Cuban sandwiches, chips, fruit salad

A Cuban sandwich has mustard, pork, ham, pickles, and Swiss cheese, and then it’s grilled and pressed. It’s supposed to be made with Cuban bread, which I have never even seen, but you can substitute something crisp but not crusty on the outside, and soft on the inside. The bread aisles are still pretty skimpy around here, so I ended up with ciabatta rolls. By the time I got twelve sandwiches assembled, I was seized with a deep, unassailable urge not to grill and press twelve sandwiches.

So I laid them all in a pan, poured tons of melted butter over the top, and baked them. I made a halfhearted attempt to squash them at some point, but that bread wasn’t up for being squashed much.

Outside:

Inside:

As you can see, the filling wasn’t all melded and compressed like they’re supposed to be. Guess what, they were delicious. Every once in a while, I have to remind myself I don’t actually believe in authentic and inauthentic food. I believe in food that either tastes good or it doesn’t, the end.

The fruit salad was pretty, too, so there.

Oh, Damien made the pork with some kind of crusted herbs outside. I honestly think he just baked it, but I’m not sure.

TUESDAY
Tacos and guacamole and margaritas

Tuesday was Taco Tuesday and Cinqo de Whathave you. But I thought it was Wednesday. So I made some pita bread dough and marinade for pork gyros before I discovered it was Tuesday. Undaunted, I put the dough and marinade in the fridge and intrepidly asked Clara to make some guacamole and asked Damien to make some taco meat.

Here’s the guac recipe:

Jump to Recipe

Tuesday was the day I realized if we were going to start seedlings inside, it needed to be now, so Benny, Corrie, and I got to work.

My original plan was to put the pots outside during the warm days, and then bring them in during the chilly nights, and to do this, uh, every day until Memorial Day, when it will be warm enough to put them in the ground. Even as I was forming this idea, I knew it was terrible and unworkable, especially since the back door is blocked by two large rolls of linoleum waiting for their time to come, and any twice-daily moving in and out of thirty little pots would surely involve showers of dirt and all kinds of rage and frustration, which doesn’t mesh at all with my tender fantasies of children experiencing the wonder of germination in the sweet, sweet springtime.

I mulled over various stupid plans and ended up installing two nursery shelves over a heating vent in front of two of the dining room windows, and now we have a whole new thing to bump our heads on! And we can still have showers of dirt. If you want to have a good laugh about people who get too many babies started even though they don’t have space or a workable plan, go right ahead. I did.

Damien knew on Monday that it was Monday, so he made some simple syrup, and on Tuesday, which he knew was Tuesday, he made some wonderful margaritas. ¡Salud!

We use Lunazul Blanco Tequila, which is cheap and fine and has a wolf on the bottle. Damien’s margarita recipe:

Jump to Recipe

WEDNESDAY
Pork gryos with yogurt sauce and homemade pita

You’d think that, since I already had the dough and marinade made, this meal would just come together, zoop-zoop-zoop, as my mother used to say. It did not. It was totally worth it, but man, it was a lot of work.

Here’s the recipe I used. Last time I made this pita bread, it puffed up like magic in the oven. This time, very little puffing occurred. I think I let the dough rise too much before I got around to baking it. It was still fantastic — so much nicer than stiff old store bought pita. I did the oven version, because I was making 32 pitas, and I only managed to get four in the oven at a time. They only take about three minutes to bake per batch, though.

With twelve people home, an adequate amount of fries pretty much takes up the whole oven, so I decided to cook the pork on the stovetop so we didn’t end up eating at midnight. The meat is better broiled or, even better, cooked outside over the coals; but it was still delicious and tender. While th was cooking, I mixed up a bunch of garlicky yogurt sauce and had the kids cut up tomatoes and cucumbers.

I like my gyros with just meat and yogurt sauce and hot sauce in the pita, with the veggies and fries on the side.

Gosh it was delicious. Man, this is a good meal.

THURSDAY
Chicken cutlets with basil and provolone

Thursday was Moe’s birthday, and this was his requested meal, heartily approved by the whole family. A Burneko recipe from Deadspin: pounded chicken breast breaded with panko crumbs and fried in olive oil, topped with fresh basil and a slice of provolone, and then smothered with a scoop of homemade tomato sauce.

Check out the insanely dramatic photos I got with the smoke from the frying chicken still billowing around in the evening sun:

It really tasted this dramatic, too. The sweet sauce, the tender chicken in crisp breading, the melty cheese, and the tender little basil hiding inside, so nice.

This is a fantastically delicious meal (which Damien doesn’t mind making every so often, even though it’s tons of work). Everyone just goes crazy and eats twice what they normally do.

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

For reasons, Moe and his girlfriend are having this same dish again tonight, in the back yard, six feet apart, and there’s a birthday cake in the oven right now. At some point in the day, I hope to make it resemble Audrey II, because that will be nice. I have slivered almonds for the teeth, but that’s as far as I’ve planned. We shall see.

Oh, and my friend Leeandra suggests the following modifications to make boxed cake mix much better: Add an extra egg, use melted butter instead of oil, and use milk instead of water. Again, we shall see!

The rest of us are having spaghetti, inside, a foot and a half apart, with leftover sauce.

Oh, Clara’s also making Hobbit bread! This is a braided loaf stuffed with cheese and sautéed onions and mushrooms, which Moe also requested for his birthday.

Past Hobbit bread:

Don’t you wish you had a sister like that?

And here, my dears, are the recipe cards. Happy spring to you!

White Lady From NH's Guacamole

Ingredients

4 avocados
1 medium tomato, diced
1 medium jalapeno, minced
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped roughly
1 Tbsp minced garlic
2 limes juiced
1 tsp chili powder
salt and pepper
1/2 red onion, diced

Instructions

Peel avocados. Mash two and dice two.
Mix together with rest of ingredients and add seasonings.
Cover tightly, as it becomes discolored quickly.

Marinade for pork gyros

Marinate thinly-sliced meat for several hours, then grill over the coals or broil in the oven. Serve wrapped up in pita with cucumbers, tomatoes, french fries, hot sauce, and yogurt sauce. This marinade is enough for about five pounds of meat.

Ingredients

4 medium tomatoes diced and smashed a bit
2 onions grated
2 Tbsp oregano (or a large handful of fresh oregano, chopped)
1/2 cup olive oil
3/4 cup lemon juice
2 Tbsp paprika
12 cloves garlic, crushed or minced
kosher salt and pepper

Yogurt sauce

Ingredients

32 oz full fat Greek yogurt
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
fresh parsley or dill, chopped (optional)

Instructions

Mix all ingredients together. Use for spreading on grilled meats, dipping pita or vegetables, etc.

Damien's margaritas

Ingredients

1 cup sugar for simple syrup
sugar for glasses
kosher salt or sea salt for glasses
white tequila (we like Lunazul Blanco)
triple sec
lime juice

Instructions

First make the simple syrup, and allow time for it to cool.
Combine the sugar with a cup of water in a small pot and simmer, stirring, until it is clear. Let cool. Damien puts it in a mason jar and refrigerates it.
Prepare the glasses. Mix sea salt or kosher salt and sugar in a saucer and add a little lime juice to wet it. Rub a lime wedge along the edge of the glass and roll it in the salt and sugar mix.
To make the margaritas, put some ice cubes in a cocktail shaker or mason jar. Add three parts tequila, two parts lime juice, one part Triple Sec, one part simple syrup. Shake until the lid gets cold. Pour the liquid into prepared glasses.

So raise a glass of spite, boys!

As we all know, drinking yourself stupid is no way to honor St. Patrick. Also, it’s offensive to actual Irish people when Americans perpetuate the stereotype of heavy drinking as characteristic of this noble people who happen to be heavy drinkers.

And green beer is for losers. Do not drink green beer. Beer is not green, begorrah. Beer is not green.

Isn’t it time that we, as a sensitive and responsive people, find some way to recalibrate our alcohol consumption so that nobody’s widdle feelings get hurt? Begorrah?

Here’s what I propose: don’t drink because it’s St. Patrick’s Day. Drink despite St. Patrick’s day. What, you don’t have any other reason to get a medium-sized load on, assuming you can find a glass that your lousy kids haven’t filled with sand and glue and left in the driveway?

1. Drink because it’s almost spring. Hooray, spring! Have a drink. What other reasons? Let’s see . . .

2. Even though you’re not Irish, your teeth are like that because of heredity, and you’re doomed to carry flossers around in your purse, to become intimately familiar with that faded oil painting of irises on the oral surgeon’s wall, and to occasionally experience the disquieting sensation of tiny shards of bone working their way through the wall of your gum. Yes, that would be pieces of your skull coming out of your mouth. That seems fine. Have a drink. It’s a kind of oral care.

3. You keep finding what looks like a really perfect college for your kids, and then it keeps turning out they’re yet another one of those “please let us know if your roommate isn’t following the underwear folding guidelines. You know, for her soul” colleges. Bottoms up.

4. 43 years old; still don’t know how to use eyeliner. Glug glug.

5. They’re going to clone a T-rex, I guess. Honest to goodness, I feel like death by imprudently reconstituted savage dinosaur is the best kind of future we can hope for right now. Cheers!

6. I guess we’re still talking about thigh gap, still? (I unlinked the link because of bad effing language, but really, all you need to know is that they’re still talking about thigh gap, still.)

7. A Michigan candidate for US Senate has proposed arming homeless people with pump-action shotguns in an effort to reduce crime.

Maybe he’s making a statement? Or maybe he’s just a libertarian. O dinosaurs, do not delay.

8. Begorrah, I got up at 4 a.m. because my head was killing me, and then right before it was time to get up, I threw up for no reason. No, I’m not pregnant. I just thought about what kind of day it was going to be, and throwing up felt right. And now I need to start boiling the traditional repulsive slab of red fat strings, in honor of St. Patrick. First person to play Clancy Brothers at me is going to get a wedge of hot cabbage served up in the worst way.

9. You know what, the Clancy Brothers deserve their own number. Those sweaters. Gevalt.

10. I don’t mean to be a hideous racist or whatever, but having married into a supremely Irish family, it occurs to me that doing something just to spite someone else, whether it’s drinking or not drinking or taking a breath, is probably the most Irish thing you can possibly do. Unless maybe it’s doing something you do enjoy doing, but pretending you don’t enjoy it and that you’re doing it just to spite someone else, because that’s not crazy at all, you crazy Irish person.

So I’ll leave you to sort that one out. I’ll be over by the bar, by which I mean the driveway, digging glue out of my glass. These fragments I have shored against my ruins. Shantih, shantih, shantih and have I mentioned, begorrah.

***
A version of this post originally ran at Aleteia, if you can believe it, in 2016.
Image: William Murphy via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Oy, was I toisty! Five Summer Cocktails that Even You Can Make

It’s so important to stay hydrated in the summer. If the only way to achieve this is to drink too much and then spend the next day guzzling water to try to wash your headache away, then so be it! Therefore, in the name of health, and because Eve Tushnet’s post about ice cream sodas reminded me about drinking, here are a few of our favorite summer drinks:

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1. THE ANGRY PIRATE

Sometimes known, by people who actually know the names of drinks, as DARK AND STORMY. (Also occasionally called STORMY NIGHT, which is actually a different drink, which please don’t drink. It sounds revolting.) Call it what you like, and keep on protesting that you’re truly, truly not trying to be cute, it’s just that your mind is going, and what’s so funny about that? Either way, it’s easy to make and very refreshing.

The recipe:
Put ice in glass. Pour in two oz. dark rum, 3 oz. ginger beer, and the juice of maybe half a lime, and stir.

We use Gosling’s Black Seal rum, but I imagine it would be fine with other brands of dark rum. And yes, we make it with ginger ale if we can’t find ginger beer, and we somehow manage to muscle our ways to the bottom of the glass.

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2. MOJITO

Now that the craze is over and people have stopped going all “Oooh, mojito, mojito!” all the time, you can safely drink this lovely concoction just because it’s great, and not because you need to use those mason jars with pictures of mustaches on them that you bought on clearance at the G.D. Hipster Warehouse.

This one is a teensy bit more complicated, so it’s best to make a whole pitcher of it ahead of time. I have a round-bottomed, thick glass pitcher with a cobalt blue rim that makes me feel SO FANCY, and it’s perfect for a big batch of mojitos. Last time we used it, I didn’t even notice that the soles of my Tevas were puffing up like Mickey Mouse shoes because my feet were too close to the campfire. That’s how good mojitos are!And there’s so much green crap floating around in there, is practically a salad.

The recipe (this will make two drinks – expand as needed)
In a shaker, lightly muddle about 15 mint leaves. Add about an ounce-and-a-half of simple syrup, the same amount of lime juice, and three ounces of white rum and three ounces of club soda. Dump in some ice and shake. Pour unstrained into glasses. Garnish with a lime wedge and another mint sprig if you like.

UPDATE: Matt Yonke makes this suggestion, and he’s totally right:
“I highly recommend mixing all the ingredients BUT the soda first, then top each drink with soda and stir lightly. You’re bashing up all the carbonation if you shake it with the others.

That’s super essential if you’re making a pitcher since you don’t want to be drinking hours old, flat club soda at the end of the pitcher. Fresh soda in every drink makes all the difference.”

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3. GIN AND TONIC

This is not really a summer drink, it’s just a drink for the ages. Winter, spring, summer, or fall, all you have to do is get most of it in the glass and you’re set. So accommodating.

The recipe:
Come on, you can figure this out.

My research: Terroir is the finest gin experience my mouth has ever known. Tanqueray is great if we have the cash. Bombay costs about the same as Tanqueray and is fine, maybe a teensy bit less smooth. New Amsterdam is drinkable, and even comes in a surprisingly glass bottle. Seagrams, you might as well start throwing up now before you even get to the cash register.

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4. WHISKEY SOUR

You don’t hear much about whiskey sours anymore. There’s no reason for this, especially if you have someone in the house who doesn’t really like whiskey, but on the other hand, the kids are in bed. You can get complicated with egg whites and sugared glass rims, but really you just need to make a bit of strong lemonade and throw some whiskey in there. A maraschino cherry will just slow you down.

Now hear this: Wild Turkey tastes fine. It really does!

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5. THE SECOND CHILDHOOD

The recipe:
Fill up a blender with ice cubes, chop ‘em up somewhat, then fill it up again with whatever kind of ice cream you like, plus a few generous glugs of Kahlua, and blend again until the ice is in little nubbins. Find a big cup and a big straw.

What, you’re too sophisticated? Shut up, I’ll make you another.

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FOR THE KIDDIES:

6. EGG CREAM

An essential part of my rich Brooklyn heritage. Possibly an acquired taste because it’s not terribly sweet, but it’s deeply refreshing.

The recicpe:
In a tall glass, pour an inch or so of milk or cream. Squirt in a ton of chocolate syrup and mix, until it’s so sweet you’d never drink it on its own. Fill up the rest of the glass with plain seltzer (pour slowly, over a spoon if necessary, because it works up a huge head). Gulp gulp gulp. Resume complaining, “Oy, was I toisty!”

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I’ll let the master have the final word: